Ipswich High School - Tiger Yearbook (Ipswich, MA)

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“I have a rendezvous with Death, At some disputed barricade When Spring comes round with rust- ling shade And I to my pledged word am true, I shall not fail that rendezvous”. These are only three short lyrics of a host of poetry that we like to remem- ber from the first world war. In the same way, in decades to come, when the last bomb of this w ar has exploded and even the gallant defense of the Philippines is a paragraph in a history book, there will be poems to be remembered and loved by future genera- tions. V e cannot predict, of course, which poets will survive, for m.yriads of them are as yet unwritten: but we can investigate the position of the poets today, surmise what is uppermost in their minds, and admire those verses which seem to us the most inspirational. Military life today, especially in the fighting zones, is keyed to such a high pitch of watchfulness that little “tom- foolery” or poetry is countenanced. Nevertheless, few poets enter the service with the thought of utterly neglecting the art. They somehow manage to find a spare moment to write down the poems that come to them. Whether at home or in active service, the poets are producing more poems than usual. Be- cause of an acute paper shortage, there is a minimum of books being published in England, but statistics show that there is nevertheless an increasing num- ber of volumes of verse going to the press! Poets are not immune to discourage- ment. In fact, they feel sadness much more acutely than ordinary individuals. Yet when they allow themselves to in- dulge in writing sombre, disheartening verses when their mission is bringing light to a war-sad world, they cease to become a line of defense, and take the shape of something almost subversive. Sad to say, there are poets today who indulge in writing bewildered poetry. In this January’s “Atlantic Month- ly” there was printed a poem called “Dedication” which John Buxton, an English prisoner in a German prison camp, rote to his bride back in England. He recounts again their favorite haunts, watching the wild geese; tells her that the poetry is all he has to send her; and he remembers bit- terly the “High-sounding names (Peace and Lib- erty) that flaunted on our banners.” Another example of the discourage- ment among poets was a manuscript found under unique circumstances. A Norwegian sailor wrote a letter in poetry form to his wife and threw it sealed in a glass bottle into the North Atlantic shortly before the ship sank from torpedo wounds. A Erench- Canadian fisherman found the bottle weeks later somewhere off Newfound- land and sent it to the Government of Canada. The poem, translated into English, shows the author’s despair that a sailor’s life is merely food for an in- satiable sea. He urges his wife to take his pay, his parents, and to forget him 31

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saillcs Treaty and other “practical phases of the war. It is the poetry that is immortal, for it lifted the world above the grim heartbreak and showed a Purpose and a Future. A young Englishwoman, Sylvia J. Read, recently tried an experiment of reading poetry on various subjects, in- cluding the war, to soldiers in British camps. She approached the first such reading with not a few qualms that poetry and soldiers do not mix, but every selection was applauded. Some soldiers shyly produced verses of their own; many of them entered into lively discussion about poetry: one of them told her that the experience had been “more real than living”: and all re- quested certain favorites of the other world war to be read. Unfailingly, Rupert Brooke’s sonnet. “The Soldier”, was among the first to be requested. This sonnet was written shortly before the young tennis champion with all of a vigorous life before him, died of fever on the journey to the Dardanelles Campaign of 1914. “If I should die. think only this of me: That there’s some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust con- cealed : A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware. Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England’s, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. And think, this heart, all evil shed away. A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given: Her sights and sounds: dreams happy as her day: And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness. In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.” There were two other equally-loved poems written also by soldiers of World War I who died in action but left their verses to inspire and soothe their com- rades and the rest of the world. John McCrae, a young Canadian Lieutenant- Colonel, challenged the living to carry on the cause of the valiant dead in “In Flanders Fields”. “Take up our quarrel with the foe; To you from failing hands we throw The torch: be yours to hold it high.’ ' Alan Seeger was a young American soldier who died on Independence Day, 1916, in a battle in France. He tells us; 30

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by firding another husband since he exists no more. The last lines show a touching homesickness. He tells his wife to say goodbye for him to the fjords that he loved, in Norway. Recently there was published in Lon- don a volume “The Best Poems of 1941“ in which appears another exam- ple of the perplexed mood which many poets arc experiencing. The following fragment is taken from the longer poem “The War God“ by Stephen Spender: “Why cannot the one good, Benevolent, feasible, Final dove descend? And the wheat be divided? And the soldiers sent home? And the barriers torn down? And the enemies forgiven? And there be no retribution? But not all the poets are immersed in doubt and despair! Many of them have already given the world some real “light and leading”. Often their courage springs from the blackest ex- periences. A new English poet was able to write the following lines during the dark days of 1 940 : “My God, I thank Thee that my course is set with others of Thy choosing, at this hour; to see the right discerned, the challenge met, and battle given to the evil power; to share the upward thrusting to the light; and all the grandeur of the stony ways;” Undoubtedly flying in the Royal Canadian Air Force seems but a mechanical accomplishment to many aviators. But to John Gillespie Magee, the 19-year-old son of an English mother and a clergyman of Washing- ton, D. C., it was another thrilling experience in the adventure called life. Young Magee had been offered a sub- stantial scholarship at Yale upon com- pleting his secondary education at Rugby, England, and Connecticut. Having been promised that the scholar- ship would wait for him, he chose to enlist in the air corps last spring. In his spare moments he continued to write poetry, including the following inspir- ing sonnet: “Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth And danced the skies on laughter-silver- ed wings: Sunward I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds — and done a hun- dred things You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov ' ring there, I’ve chased the shouting wind along and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air. Up, up the long delirious, burning blue I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace, 32